Thursday, March 26, 2015

Germanwings and Pilot Safety after 9/11 … by gimleteye

It can only mean one of two things, when one pilot is locked outside of the cockpit and the pilot inside is incapacitated at the controls. Either the pilot inside is on a suicide mission, or, he is unconscious.

News leaking out of the French Alps is horrifying. According to the NY Times, the retrieved voice recorder contains the sounds of the pilot, outside the cockpit, trying to break the locked door down -- to gain access back inside. If that is true, then the final ten minutes of life for the 144 passengers was abject horror.

Since 9/11, passenger jets have taken off and landed safely millions of times. The hardened access to the cockpit to prevent terrorists from taking over cockpits has worked. Still, in this case -- and possibly a few others -- an impregnable cockpit door was a death sentence for passengers.

Designing a fail safe system of protecting the cockpit, when the technology everywhere else on a passenger jet is 21st century, should not be rocket science. In an age when drones and cars can be controlled remotely, there ought to be a safe way to protect passengers when pilots are incapacitated.